Women Aviators (11 page)
Authors: Karen Bush Gibson
Edna told the inspector how hard she had worked. She even cried. He relented, and she earned her license. The next year, when she joined the Navy Nurse Corps, she was stationed at Newport's naval hospital. In her free time, she flew, winning her first race in 1933. She also began teaching flying to others.
The Stinsons were a flying family of brothers and sisters. Eldest sister Katherine sold her family's piano to pay for flying lessons and became the fourth American woman to earn a license in 1912. Ironically, she wanted the flying lessons so that she could earn money for a music career. Katherine was very small in size and looked younger than her 21 years when she began performing in air exhibitions in the United States and Europe. She was nicknamed “the Flying Schoolgirl.” Katherine later became the first woman authorized to be an airmail pilot.
Marjorie Stinson followed in her older sister's footsteps, becoming the ninth American woman pilot to receive her license two years later. She soon became the only woman in the US Aviation Reserve Corps. Although she also was certified as an airmail carrier, her talents seemed to lie in flight instruction.
After hearing about Florence Klingensmith doing 68 consecutive loops, Edna decided to try aerobatics. She asked some male pilots how to do a loop.
“When you're up, drive toward the ground and build up speed. Then put your plane back over the top.”
Edna's first attempt was memorable. Her engine stalled, plus everything that could come out of the plane didâand landed right on Edna. Thankfully, she had goggles on, as a lot of dirt and even a couple of dead mice rained upon her face. But Edna didn't quit. She kept trying and worked up to 38 loops.
In 1915, the Stinson family opened the Stinson School for Aviation at San Antonio's Kelly Field. They trained pilots for the US Army and Canada's Royal Flying Corps. Perhaps as a nod to Katherine's nickname, people began calling Marjorie “the Flying Schoolmarm” until 1918, when the school closed.
During World War I, Katherine participated in fund-raising tours for the Red Cross and drove an ambulance in Europe. A bad case of influenza weakened her health and ended her aviation career. Marjorie changed careers in 1928 and became a draftsman for the Aeronautical Division of the US Navy.
Katherine Stinson.
Courtesy of Chicago Daily News negatives collection, Chicago History Museum
After transferring to the US Naval Hospital in Washington, DC, Edna entered an air race that offered $300 to the winner. Although she won the otherwise all-male race, she noticed the group of male officials huddled together. She figured they were trying to find a way to disqualify her. Two other pilots stepped up and told the judges that she had won fair and square. The race was advertised the next year with a sign that said,
MEN ONLY.
Edna's mother, now recuperated from her bout with tuberculosis, saw an article in the newspaper about her daughter, “the Flying Nurse.” She sent for Edna and promised to put
her through medical school (another ambition of Edna's) if she would quit flying. Edna tried, but she just couldn't stay away from flying. Knowing she wouldn't be happy unless she was flying fulltime, Edna lost her mother's financial support and resigned from the navy in 1935. Years later, her mother enjoyed taking flights with her daughter and even served as copilot for about five races while in her 80s.
Edna approached commercial airlines, such as Chicago and Southern Air Lines and Braniff International Airways, for a job as a pilot. They were hiring her students, so why not hire her when she had ten times as many hours? One airline refused her for being too short, even though she was half an inch taller than a student of hers whom it did hire.
Finally, the man at Braniff asked, “Do you think people will get on an airplane if they see a woman as the pilot?”
“I don't know why not,” she answered. “People get on my planes all the time.”
“Well, I'm sure it hurt business. The interview is over.”
Moving to New Orleans, Edna started a flight school, Air College Inc., and taught students how to fly for the airlines. When World War II arrived, she sold her school to the US Navy and went to Fort Worth, Texas, to get instrument ratings. At the end of her career, she had eight pilot ratings. She volunteered to fly for her country. Not surprisingly, she was turned down. However, the government did ask her to train male fighter pilots at Meacham Field in Texas. Her knowledge of aerobatics came in handy, because military pilots needed to know how to evade the enemy with tricky maneuvers.
When military pilot training was discontinued in February 1944, Edna fell back on her nursing skills and left the United States to work in an army hospital in the Philippines. Again, she
looked for any opportunity to fly. She was recognized for flying injured soldiers out in B-25s.
After the war, Edna started another flight school, Aero Enterprises, in Fort Worth. It began as a flight training school for veterans coming back from the war. One of the flight instructors she hired was George Whyte. They fell in love and married when Edna was 43. When not teaching, she continued to enter the occasional contest. She won the Women's International Air Race in 1953. The Whytes continued to run Aero Enterprises but often talked about building their own airport.
George died before they could fulfill that dream, but Edna persevered and opened Aero Valley Airport in Roanoke, Texas. Still active in flying and teaching well into her 80s, she taught nearly 5,000 students in her lifetime, including her daughter. At the age of 83, she said, “When I grew older, I knew I could go to an old peoples' home, but I wanted one with a runway at the door. I already have that. Why should I move?”
When she died in 1992 at the age of 89, Edna had more than 35,000 flight hours, 127 air race trophies, and recognition by many groups, including the Texas Women's Hall of Fame. She also received the Charles Lindbergh Lifetime Achievement Award and was the first woman to be elected an honorary member of the Order of Daedalians, an organization of military pilots.
American Women and Flight Since 1940
by Deborah G. Douglas, Amy E. Foster, Alan D. Meyer, and Lucy B. Young (University Press of Kentucky, 2004)
“Edna Gardner Whyte” on International Women's Air and Space Museum website,
http://iwasm.org/wp-blog/museum-collections/women-in-air-space-history/edna-gardner-whyte/
Rising Above It: An AutobiographyâThe Story of a Pioneering Woman Aviator
by Edna Gardner Whyte with Ann L. Cooper (Orion Books, 1991)
The First Licensed Asian American Woman Pilot
I
N 1932, A SPIRITED YOUNG
woman with a big smile on her face stood next to an airplane, her hand on the propeller. Joy radiated from her face. The 27-year-old woman was a pilot. Although female pilots were still rare in 1932, she wasn't the only one, nor was she the youngest. This woman had soloed after 12.5 hours of flying lessons. Although that achievement is remarkable, she didn't hold a record for that either. What made Katherine Sui Fun Cheung extraordinary was that she was the first licensed female Asian American aviator. She raced, performed aerial acrobatics, and participated in air shows.
Born in Canton, China, in 1904, Katherine Cheung moved to the United States at age 17 to study music, first at the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music and later at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, and the University of Southern California.
One day, she accompanied her father to Dycer Airport for a driving lesson. But instead of driving, Katherine was mesmerized by the airplanes taking off and landing. She never forgot the sight of those planes.
Years later, when she was a wife and mother, a cousin who happened to be a pilot took her up in his airplane. The experience was unlike anything she had ever experienced. She immediately signed up for flying lessons with the Chinese Aeronautical Association for five dollars.
Katherine earned her license in 1932 and became one of about 200 licensed women pilots in the United States. Of that group, she was the only one who was Asian. In her homeland of China, women weren't allowed to take lessons. She began entering air shows and competitive air events, including the Chatterton Air Race. Katherine particularly enjoyed stunt flying. The snap rolls, inverted flying, and spiral diving thrilled audiences at California county fairs.
The Chinese American community was so proud of Katherine that, with the help of famous Chinese actress Anna May Wong, they raised $2,000 to buy her a 125-horsepower Fleet biplane. In an air race from Glendale to San Diego, she came in fourth.
Three years later, in 1935, she earned her international license to fly as a commercial pilot. She was a good pilot who could handle herself in the air. One time, when she was flying back from an aviation competition in Cleveland, her compass broke, but she was still able to find her way home.
Hazel Ying Lee was another early Chinese American aviator. Born in Portland, Oregon, Hazel took her first flight at the age of 19 in 1932. She joined her city's Chinese Flying Club to take lessons and earned her pilot's license the same year. Like Katherine, Hazel also heard about Japan attacking China and decided to volunteer for the Chinese Air Forceâbut she was rejected. She flew a commercial plane in China for a while, before returning to the United States in 1938. She joined the Women's Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs). While in training at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas, she had to make an emergency landing in a farmer's field. The farmer believed she was Japanese and held her with his pitchfork until authorities could verify her identity. As a WASP, Hazel ferried pursuit or fighter aircraft from the factories to military airfields. It was while doing her job that she and another plane crashed. Her injuries were so severe that she died within a few days.